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Thursday, January 28, 2016

More notes on the rise and rise of cli-fi -- from the desk of Professor Robin Bates

More notes on the rising term of ‘cli-fi’: And more from Professor Robin Bates on climate change and literature (slightly edited for clarification and amplifaction)

My interview with cli-fi popularizer Dan Bloom drew some interesting comments when it was reposted by invitation from Teleread CEO David Rothman on the TeleRead website.

I think that “cli-fi” will catch on, and there’s a very good chance it will, according to Bloom. After all, climate matters will become more and more pressing in the years to come.

I use the present post to talk a little more about generic labeling and also to list my major posts on literature and climate change over the past few years.

MORE BELOW THE FOLD

I find useful Rick Altman's nonfiction book Film Genre, one of the best books I know on generic labeling. Although Film Genre focuses on the cinema—there’s much more money at stake in labeling films than in labeling novels—it has a very useful survey of genre history, going all the way back to Aristotle’s attempts to define tragedy and comedy.

Altman’s main point is that, although genres sometimes seem to have the solidity of natural fact, in reality they always emerge through a complex interaction of authors, audiences, and cultural institutions. Some genres take hold while others seem silly and fade away, but one can’t always predict ahead of time what will happen.

To cite a couple of his examples, what we now call the action adventure genre used to be called melodrama or “mellers.” Now we most commonly associate melodrama with “women’s films,” but these used to be called “women’s weepies.” (Some now call them “chick flicks,” although these can also include comedy as well as melodrama.)

And then there are westerns, which used to be called “oaties.” The simple term “musical,” meanwhile, is a merging of “revue,” “comic opera,” “minstrel shows,” etc. And so on.

One couldn’t have predicted that sci-fi would become a respectable generic label rather than a silly way of describing a lot of pulp fiction, some of it featuring BEMs (bug-eyed monsters). But this genre would by taken up by authors who have become canonical, like Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula LeGuin, and Margaret Atwood. My point in Tuesday’s post is that sci-fi became respectable because science and technology are making such a mark on our world that a special fiction devoting itself to such subjects lent itself to serious artistic exploration.

I think that “cli-fi” will catch on, and there’s a very good chance it will, according to Bloom. After all, climate matters will become more and more pressing in the years to come.

Here are posts I’ve written over the years about literature that casts light upon issues raised by climate change.

Many of my posts have been about climate change denial. For instance:

Donne’s Warning about Climate Change – Donne is talking of the movement of the spheres in his poem “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” but he makes a nice point that we only see the effects of nature that occur right before our eyes, not the larger patterns. Think of Senator James Inhofe bringing a snowball to the Senate to disprove global warming.Tolstoy and Climate Change Denial – We can see that climate change denialists follow in the footsteps of the Moscow aristocrats in War and Peace, who can’t believe that Napoleon will take the city.Out of Denial and into Responsibility – Jack Burden in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men gives us a great description of the philosophy of denial, which he calls “idealism.” By the end of the novel, fortunately, he decides to face up to reality.Obama: A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall – Poet John Vaughan decries fools who “prefer dark night before true light,” and Alexander Pope in The Dunciad goes after the dunces who turn their backs on science, intelligence, and logic.GOP Denies a Giant Problem – For another instance of denial, it is hard to top Jonathan Swift’s Lilliputians, who refuse to believe that other men like Gulliver could exist. Their philosophers conclude that he must have dropped from the moon.Haiyan, Climate Change, and King Lear – King Lear also closes his eyes to the family and political storms that he has triggered. “See better, Lear,” his most trustworthy counselor advises him, thereby earning banishment.When American Fantasies Are Dangerous – In American Gods, Neil Gaiman gives us a great example of denial: southern slave owners refuse to acknowledge that there has been a successful slave rebellion in Haiti.Melville and Climate Change Denial – Another instance of slave society denial occurs with Captain Delano in Melville’s fine novella Benito Cereno.
Some write about the grim future ahead:Climate Action Will Lead to Dystopia – Russell Hoban’s post-apocalyptic novelRiddley Walker is about nuclear holocaust, not climate change, but it captures the same disregard for future generations that climate denialists are exhibiting.Hydrocarbons Unleash an Angry God – Euripides’s The Bacchae shows how nature respond when we try to impose our will upon it. The control freak King Pentheus is torn apart at the order of Dionysus.This Is the Way the World Ends – Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice” sounds as though it was written for climate change. Will the world end in fire or ice? How about both?Will Californians Become the New Okies? – The droughts that climate change is visiting upon California (not to mention other parts of the world) bring to mind the ecological nightmare described by John Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath.The Mariner’s Advice to College Students – Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner can be read as an ecological parable—the arrogance which the mariner exhibits by shooting the albatross unleashes “life in death” upon the world.
Some authors provide useful advice for climate activists:Kingsolver Tries to Save the Planet – Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviordirectly takes on the issue of climate change as it shows disruptions to the migration of monarch butterflies. Most usefully, Kingsolver shows various constituencies that must learn to talk to each other if we are to address the issues.Being Right on the Climate Is Not Enough – Along these lines, Ibsen’s Enemy of the People has important lessons for climate activists: if you want to change people’s minds, avoid self-righteousness.Climate Change: Signs of Witchery – Leslie Marmon Silko, a Laguna Pueblo writer, vividly captures environmental devastation in her novel Ceremony but also has her protagonist discover a healthier way of living in the world.Climate Hope Shines in Dark Times – Madeleine L’Engel has a wonderful Advent poem that I shared after the world gathered in Paris this past December to combat climate change. Despite the grim forecasts, we experienced a glimmer of hope.
And finally, if you are in the mood for light verse about the environment, here are a number of poems by my father, a deep lover of nature:An ABC of Our Attack on the EarthThe River’s Blood Turned to StoneThe Animals Are Trying to Warn UsThe Koch Brothers: Oligarchs of Oil and Ordure